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Matt Fraser has his feel-good moment, but bigger names need to have theirs

MONTREAL -- There must be no cooler feeling than to do what Matt Fraser did Thursday night. The kid who dominates the AHL but hasn't cracked the NHL for good yet -- though not for lack of trying -- gets the call for his first playoff game and scores the biggest goal of his life in overtime of a crucial game in the league's best rivalry.

It's the ultimate feel-good story, and while the Bruins should rally around Fraser's Game 4 heroics, the Fraser story masks a growing issue for the Bruins as they now face a three-game series that will either see them go back to the Eastern Conference finals or be postseason busts at the hands of the Canadiens: How about some feel-good moments for David Krejci and friends?

We'll get to the Bruins' first-line issue, but for now, the Fraser story really is as warm and fuzzy as it gets. Fraser, one of the players who filled out last summer's trade with the Stars that centered around Tyler Seguin and Rich Peverley for Loui Eriksson and Reilly Smith, has great character and, after totaling 70 goals in his first two AHL seasons and adding 20 more in 44 games for Providence, would do anything to get to the NHL and stick there.

When multiple Boston forwards were hurt in December and January and Fraser was up with the Bruins for a 14-game stint, he had minimal impact as a struggling third-liner getting little ice time. But the 23-year-old fought in two games to try to show his value. Though he was no stranger to fighting earlier on in his career (37 fights in the WHL over his last three seasons and four AHL fights at the time), Fraser was a top-line player in the AHL and was in Boston to score. Still, he wanted to fight, saying, "Anything that I think can help my case, I have to do."

After playing the rest of the season down in Providence and getting the call to Boston Wednesday, Fraser got the best possible reward for his work.

“Words can’t even describe how I feel,” Fraser ("Fraz" to his teammates) said after the game. “I just watched the replay of it and I don’t even want to begin to try to explain it because that’s something I wish every kid could feel.”

One kid who knows the feeling is Patrice Bergeron, though the situations were rather different. Playing in his second playoff game as rookie back in the 2003-04 season, the then-18-year-old Bergeron scored the game-winning goal in overtime in Game 2 of the first round against the Canadiens.

"It's definitely a great feeling and probably the biggest goal of his career, I'm sure," Bergeron said. "Definitely a great moment. He's got to enjoy it, and he had a great game. It was a big way for him to end this."

Fraser's high in ice time in the regular season was 12:07 on Dec. 23 against the Predators, a game in which he scored, but he played less than 11 minutes of 11 of his 14 games. On Thursday, not only was he given the responsibility of a spot in the lineup in a key game, he was given 14:44 of ice time. His line with Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson performed well and had numerous chances on the night before finally capitalizing against Montreal's third pairing of Douglas Murray and Mike Weaver. That's a pairing Boston has to take advantage of more than it has, assuming it stays together.

"Anyone scoring, we're thrilled, but it's neat to see [Fraser] come up and not just get that goal but play a lot of minutes tonight and be very effective and composed and good on the walls," Jarome Iginla said. "Earlier in the year, he would do anything when he was here; [he'd] fight. We know he's a goal-scorer, so it's pretty neat. You dream of those things. It's pretty neat to see a guy go through that and have that. It must be a great feeling. It's a great feeling for all of us."

Which brings us to Iginla and his linemates. You need your best players to perform in the playoffs, and the Bruins have arguably the best postseason forward in the NHL in Krejci. That hasn't been the case this postseason, as Krejci still has just one point this series -- an assist on an empty-net goal -- and is a minus-2. Over the entire postseason, Krejci has no goals and three assists with a minus-3 rating.

The postseason often sees top-six forwards cancel one another out and secondary scoring -- such as Fraser's goal -- make a difference, but Boston needs something out of its first line. Iginla rang iron on a bid in the first period -- one of three hit posts for the B's in Game 4 -- but Krejci didn't even attempt a shot in the first two periods, and Montreal continued to take away his trio's space.

"Baby steps," Krejci said of his line's performance. "We had some good looks, Iggy hit the post in the first period. It's just about staying positive and going out there. If you're not producing on the score sheet, you've got to do other things well. I thought we had a strong defensive game, but we need to be better offensively. We'll try to be better next game."

Yes, it's a tied series and the Bruins get two of the next three (if necessary) in their own building, but baby steps aren't good enough. Having to rely on Baby B's is hardly enough. It was good enough in Game 4, but the Bruins shouldn't bank on it the rest of the way. Remember, when Torey Krug came in and made a name for himself against the Rangers last year, Krejci and friends still showed up. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

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